Pam Bondi has been fired as Attorney General of the United States. According to two sources familiar with the matter who spoke with Fox News Digital, Bondi was informed of her ouster by President Trump in an Oval Office meeting Wednesday night, before Trump delivered his primetime address to the nation on the war in Iran.
By the time Trump took his place behind the podium to speak, Bondi had already lost her job and was on her way back to Florida.
No formal White House announcement had been issued as of Thursday afternoon.
When asked about the ouster Wednesday evening, the White House directed Fox News to a statement Trump had issued to The New York Times, “Attorney General Pam Bondi is a wonderful person and she is doing a good job.”
The Department of Justice did not respond to requests for comment. A White House source, when pressed by Fox News Digital on the matter, stopped short of a formal confirmation but described the information as “not cold.”
The firing ends a turbulent 14-month tenure at the Justice Department that began with Bondi’s Senate confirmation on a 54-46 vote in January 2025 and collapsed under the sustained weight of the Jeffrey Epstein files controversy, frustrated allies inside the West Wing, and a president who concluded she was not doing enough to pursue his political enemies.
How Was She Fired?
The sequence of events on Wednesday tells the story efficiently. Bondi spent the morning alongside Trump, riding in his motorcade to the United States Supreme Court as the president attended oral arguments on the birthright citizenship case, a visible show of togetherness that her allies had cited as evidence the reports of her firing were premature.
By that evening she was in the Oval Office being told her time was up. Trump, according to a White House official who spoke to NBC News, personally liked Bondi and gave her the notification in advance of any formal announcement in order to give her some measure of dignity in the exit.
She was on a plane back to Florida before Trump finished speaking.
Trump held a separate meeting with EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin at the White House on Tuesday, ostensibly to discuss wildfire prevention, during which the question of Zeldin replacing Bondi also came up, according to a source familiar with that meeting.
Zeldin is described by multiple sources as the leading candidate to replace Bondi, though the same sources note that Trump has not made a final decision and could change his mind.
Why Was Bondi Fired?
The central reason is the Epstein files. In February 2025, less than a month into her tenure, Bondi appeared on Fox News and said that an Epstein client list was “sitting on my desk right now to review.”
The Justice Department subsequently stated that no such specific client list existed.
Bondi later walked back the comment, saying she had been referring generally to all the paperwork related to the Epstein investigation, flight logs and other documents, rather than a dedicated client list. The retraction did not land well.
Trump’s base had anticipated that Bondi’s Justice Department would produce dramatic disclosures from the Epstein files.
The chaotic rollout, the conflicting statements, and the eventual underwhelming releases generated sustained anger that never fully subsided.
The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed Bondi to testify about her department’s handling of the files.
During a contentious House Judiciary Committee hearing in February 2026, she refused to answer substantive questions.
The Capitol Hill deposition tied to the Oversight subpoena was still pending when she was fired.
The Epstein frustration was compounded by a second grievance. According to Semafor, Trump had also grown angry over reports that Bondi may have tipped off California Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell to an administration effort to release investigative files related to Swalwell’s alleged connection to an alleged Chinese intelligence operative.
That reporting was first published by The Daily Mail. Whether the tip-off allegation was a factor in the final decision or primarily a symptom of broader lost trust is not clear from current reporting.
Beyond those two specific complaints, multiple sources across CNN, NBC, and Semafor described Trump’s frustration that Bondi was not aggressively enough pursuing his political enemies.
Her department did secure indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, among others, but those cases were thrown out after a judge ruled the prosecutor handling them was illegally serving in his role.
Trump viewed the failures as compounding evidence that Bondi was not delivering on the retribution agenda he had made central to his second term.
White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles had been Bondi’s most important protector inside the administration, intervening multiple times when Trump soured on her to advocate for keeping her in place.
Wiles had herself told Vanity Fair that Bondi had “completely whiffed” on the Epstein handling, but continued to defend her position through the resulting controversy. Whatever argument Wiles may have made this time was not enough.
Who Is Lee Zeldin?
Lee Zeldin, 40, is the current Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, a role in which he has pursued aggressive deregulation consistent with Trump’s energy dominance agenda.
Before joining the administration, Zeldin served as a Republican congressman representing New York’s 1st congressional district on Long Island. He ran for New York governor in 2022, losing narrowly to Kathy Hochul in what became one of the closest gubernatorial races in the state’s recent history.
He remained close to Trump through the 2024 campaign, appearing regularly at Mar-a-Lago and becoming one of the most trusted figures in Trump’s orbit.
Trump described Zeldin in February 2026 as “our secret weapon” at a White House event promoting the coal industry, adding that he was getting regulatory approvals done in “record setting time.”
The idea of moving Zeldin to the Justice Department first arose inside the West Wing in January 2026 as the Epstein frustration was building, before subsiding when the coverage cooled.
It resurfaced on Monday of this week as the situation reached its breaking point.
Zeldin would require Senate confirmation to serve as Attorney General. The timeline for a formal nomination and confirmation process is not yet known.
Who Is Pam Bondi?
Pamela Jo Bondi, 60, served three terms as Florida’s Attorney General from 2011 to 2019, building a reputation as a reliable Republican operative and a loyal Trump ally well before his political rise.
She represented Trump during his first impeachment trial in the Senate in 2020 and remained a visible presence in his orbit throughout his years out of office.
She was Trump’s second choice for Attorney General in his second term. His first pick, former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, withdrew before his nomination reached the Senate after a congressional ethics report found he had paid women for sex and drugs and obstructed Congress.
Bondi stepped in as the replacement nominee and was confirmed 54-46.
Her firing makes her the second Cabinet member removed during Trump’s second term, following Kristi Noem’s departure from the Department of Homeland Security in early March 2026.
Noem’s removal followed months of operational failures at DHS and sustained criticism of her performance from within the administration’s own orbit.
The Justice Department, one of the most powerful law enforcement institutions in the world, now awaits its third leader in thirteen months.
